Community Connections group comes from San Antonio

Wednesday

Jun 19, 2013 at 3:00 PM

At 5:30 a.m. on Monday morning, a group of 117 kids and adults to accompany them embarked on a fourteen and a half hour trip from San Antonio, Texas, to La Junta, Colo. The adults and kids are from University United Methodist Church and Coker United Methodist Church in San Antonio, under the direction of Aaron Buttery, a youth pastor at United Methodist Churches there.

At 5:30 a.m. on Monday morning, a group of 117 kids and adults to accompany them embarked on a fourteen and a half hour trip from San Antonio, Texas, to La Junta, Colo. The adults and kids are from University United Methodist Church and Coker United Methodist Church in San Antonio, under the direction of Aaron Buttery, a youth pastor at United Methodist Churches there.

The group is here through a project called Connected Community Project. They came to establish a better bond for the United Methodist Church with and among the people of Otero County. They had been in contact with various people in the La Junta/Rocky Ford area for over a month, deciding on the projects they would undertake.

Laura Hicks of the Arkansas Valley Pregnancy Center said that at first, she had thought of little projects like flower pots, etc. Then the director said, "Think big!" So Hicks did, and the projects the group is working on are a large mural for the west side of the building and framing the office area for individual offices. These offices, which will be soundproofed as much as possible, will allow the clients to have privacy while they are consulting with the counselors at the center. "I've been praying about it for a long time," said Hicks, "and these kids have made it possible."

Dennis and Janet Golding were working with the group at the pregnancy center. Although they aren't Methodists, it's like Dennis said, "We are all working for the same God." The neat part about having the visitors in La Junta is the connections that are made. Groups and people in La Junta, Cheraw and Rocky Ford are making new friendships. The visitors and local folks are making connections, said Ardeth Sneath.

At the Otero Museum on Tuesday, a crew was working on cleaning the switch engine and railroad cars to get ready for the professional painter who will be painting them. It looked like a hot, dirty job but there was not a word of complaining. Part of the crew was under the side of the switch engine, chipping away at 50 years of dirt, grease and debris. Don Lowman looked happy as he roamed around the busy kids.

At Southeast Health Group, another team was putting landscape beams into place to form garden plots for a community center for the youth and family services and other clients of the center.

Other projects have been cleaning 200 windows at Evergreen Gardens on Monday and painting and patching kitchen walls at the La Junta Senior Center on Tuesday. They are working with the 4-H of Rocky Ford at the Tri-County Family Care Center, painting the building. They will also paint four homes in he Arkansas Valley, install a handicap ramp for the elderly, paint the exterior of a business in Rocky Ford and also paint a mural. In addition, the group will build a fence for an elderly lady's dog and do several jobs not listed.

They came together for a barbecue supper at the United Methodist Church in La Junta on Tuesday evening, so the Tribune-Democrat took the opportunity of getting nearly all the kids and adults in the same place at the same time to have their picture taken. It's not all work and no play. The kids also have games, arts and crafts, a pool tournament, a dominoes tournament, a soccer camp and tournament, an outdoor concert and swimming. Amid the fun activities at Casa Del Sol, they set up for the annual yard sale on Saturday.